Why Anne Hathaway Doesn't Care What You Think

A year and a half ago, it would have been almost unthinkable to turn to a friend and say, "You know what? I haven't seen much of that Anne Hathaway lately."

Flash forward to 2014 and, aside from production stills from the set of The Intern, her upcoming film with Robert DeNiro, the actress has been pretty much MIA since winning her best supporting actress Oscar last year for Les Miserables. Now, she's making a welcome return (yes, really) with a saucy cover shoot for the November issue of British Elle. And, yes, she's got something to say about the public perception that inspired her to lay low for a good year or so.

‘This fame thing? Fucked me up for a really long time," she told the magazine. "I didn’t know how to do it; I didn’t know how to engage with it; it stressed me out. And, people would say, 'You just have to be yourself,' and I was like, 'But I don’t know who that is yet!'"

Hathaway, who will be back on the silver screen in Interstellar, also spoke about how pushing through the public's perception of her helped her come to terms with her own confidence.

"I’ve realized that don’t need validation from anybody," the 31-year-old told the magazine. "At all. I’m not sitting here now worrying, 'What do you think of me?' With all due respect, you [the interviewer] seem like a lovely lady, but I don’t need you, or anyone else, to like me. And, that’s so liberating. It’s a big reveal, man."

Love her or not, that's a discovery everyone needs to make at some point in their life. For the record, there's plenty to like in the saucy shoot with Kai Z. Feng. Hathaway stuns in stark designs from Emporio Armani, Roland Mouret, Givenchy, and more — all while talking marriage and doing impersonations of costar Matthew McConaughey.